Lebanon at risk of total outage
Lebanon at risk of total outage
Beirut, May 7 (Prensa Latina) Lebanon is today at risk of total blackout due to the emergency of scraping up US$200 million to buy fuel, The Daily Star reported today.
The state-owned electricity company Electricite du Liban (EDL) must pay such a figure ahead of time in order to guarantee electricity service in the country, but Parliament withheld that amount.
Parliamentary Public Works Committee decided on Thursday to delay the transfer due to the shortage of foreign exchange the country is fighting off.
Acting Ministers of Finance Ghazi Wazni and of Energy Raymond Ghajar, along with Deputy Nazih Najem, told Parliament the emergency of using such a figure to recover electricity service.
Eurobonds default: a one-year anniversary
Is Lebanon running out of options?
It has been one year since the Lebanese government defaulted
on a USD 1.2 billion Eurobonds issuance that was due on March 9
th
2020. One year on, negotiations with Eurobond holders have still not begun, and
no good faith discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been
engaged in order to help negotiate a financial aid package and also on engaging
stakeholders.
The default on the payment, the first in Lebanon’s history, resulted in a default on all Eurobonds issuance, due to specific clauses in the Eurobonds issuances: should a default on a Eurobonds issuance occur without agreeing on restructuring terms with 75 percent of the holders of this issuance, this would trigger a default on all outstanding Eurobonds, which totals USD 31.3 Billion, of which USD 11 billion are held locally by Lebanese banks.